# @usgs on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DcesXG6Gtc9
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/69687805-usgs-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/280dd27754.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-08-25T22:18:54.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) (@USGS) — https://gondola.cc/USGS

## Caption

Every national park has a story written in rock, water, and wildlife. USGS scientists are helping tell it.

Across many parks, USGS scientists study changing ecosystems, wildlife, water, and natural hazards. From tracking contaminants in aquatic food webs to monitoring glaciers, mapping river change, and studying how plants and animals adapt to changing conditions, this work helps us better understand these places and provides science and data to help park managers make informed decisions.

Swipe through for a look at some of the USGS science happening in parks across the country and follow along this week as we highlight more USGS science in our national parks.

📷 1: USGS and NPS staff collecting data, Canyonlands National Park, Utah. For over 30 years, the USGS has been working with the NPS in Canyonlands to monitor plant cover and diversity, soils, and biological soil crusts to see how the dryland ecosystem is responding to changing conditions and past grazing. 

📷 2: Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse, Acadia National Park, Maine.  In anticipation of more frequent and intense flooding events, the USGS helped Acadia’s natural resource managers identify the stream reaches and crossings that have the highest potential for erosion and flood damage. 

📷 3: Dry coastal habitat at Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park, Hawaiʻi. USGS researchers compared imagery from the early 2000s to 2022 and found widespread coral loss at reefs, due to repeated bleaching and other stressors, within and adjacent to national parks along the Kona Coast of Hawaiʻi’s Big Island. 

📷 4:  Bison, Badlands National Park, South Dakota. The USGS partnered with 4 national parks across the northern Great Plains on a structured process that considers key resources, uncertainties, and multiple plausible climate futures to evaluate management options. 

📷 5:  Fall foliage, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. The USGS worked with managers at four national parks in the eastern U.S. on a structured decision-making process to navigate the complex management of threats to brook trout and other coldwater species and ecosystems. Credit: Used with permission from David Fisher.

#NationalParkWeek

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